Dutch Nurse 'killed 13 By Lethal Injection'

A Dutch nurse accused of carrying out a killing spree on patients in her care went on trial yesterday for the murder of 13 people, including four babies.

Lucy Isabella Quirina de Berk, 40, allegedly administered lethal injections of morphine or some other drug to at least 13 patients. She is charged with the attempted murder of five others.

The deaths occurred between 1997 and 2001 at three different hospitals in the Hague.

The victims were aged between two months and 91 years and prosecutors claim that Ms De Berk deliberately preyed on the very young and the very old so as not to arouse suspicion. She was, they say, "obsessed with death" and a psychopath.

One of the victims was a 91-year-old Chinese judge at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal.

Rene Elkerbout, a spokesman for the Hague district court, where the case is being heard, says it is the most serious murder trial the city has ever seen: "Thirteen victims is a record for us. We've never had anything like this before."

Ms De Berk denies the charges and yesterday, on the opening day of her trial, she tried to pin the blame on negligent doctors whom she claimed had failed to realise how seriously ill the patients in her care were.

One of the 13 people who died under her supervision was a physically and mentally handicapped six-year-old Afghan boy, Ahmad Noory, who died as a result of a lethal overdose of sleeping medication. Yesterday Ms De Berk denied she had killed the boy.

"I have a clear conscience. I didn't do a thing," she told the presiding judge, Jeanne Kalk. "Of course it [his death] is strange but I don't know how it happened.

"I warned the doctor that the child was very ill and nothing was done. Nobody did anything when I told them Ahmad had stopped responding and couldn't be woken up."

It was the first time that Ms De Berk had broken her silence on the case since her arrest last December.

Her lawyers say there is little real evidence against her and not a single witness: much of the prosecution case is based on the premise that she appeared to be the only person present when the patients died.

The fact that many of those who died were children born with physical abnormalities or elderly people suffering from terminal illnesses also complicates the prosecution's task.

However, in March investigators exhumed the bodies of three children initially believed to have died of terminal illnesses and discovered traces of toxins in their blood.

Ms De Berk is also accused of forging her professional qualifications and prosecutors claim that her reading matter indicates she has an unhealthy interest in murder. Searches of her home unearthed books such as Inside the Home of a Serial Killer.

In a country where euthanasia has just become legal - though it has been informally tolerated for decades - the case has touched a raw nerve.

The new law lays out strict criteria for mercy killing but the De Berk case has revived fears that medical staff could get away with murder more easily.

The indictment against Ms De Berk shows she had a troubled childhood. Her alcoholic parents moved to Canada when she was a teenager and she worked as a prostitute in Vancouver.

The trial, which is expected to last until Monday, will hear from a toxicologist and an FBI expert on serial killers. A verdict is not expected for a fortnight. Ms De Berk could face life imprisonment.